Accra, July 2, 2010

Day Two

Here! Safe! Sound! If anyone remembers this time last year, I was wearing crusty 72-hour old clothing and still waiting on my baggage to arrive in Accra (last year's first post). No crazy turn of events this time around. Well, not really. I got “stuck” in transit, but I did most of my “sticking” in the comforts of Baltimore and New York City—arriving in Ghana only a few days late. I can already tell that this year is going to be different. I’m here; I’m clean; my accommodations and my roommate are both lovely; and I’m hitting the ground (sort of) running.

I bought a SIM card from a roadside stand this morning only to find out that SIM cards now have to be registered before first use. This sent me to the “business district” of Osu to stand in line for an hour to register my new telephone number to my name. Nothing out of the ordinary for those of us used to having telephones linked to our names, our addresses, our credit cards, our lives. It’s just out of the ordinary given African telecom…or at least what I thought I knew of African telecom.

There’s something to be admired about the efficiency of being able to walk up to a woman on a street corner and purchase a cell phone number and cell phone minutes…no questions asked. Those days of African “efficiency” are over, my friends. Big Brother now wants to know who’s using these phones, hence the Western tradition of queue-formation takes over and the one-hour wait for phone registration is born.

I’m looking out a restaurant window right now watching them shut down one of the busiest streets in the city in order to erect a metal platform in front of the mobile phone store. I have a distinct feeling this platform is going to be showing the Ghana game this evening, and because of this reason even the eternally-honking taxi cab drivers don’t really seem to mind the fact that the street is closed. Over my right shoulder, the Netherlands v. Brasil game is being played on a 36” flat-screen TV and a small crowd (of men) is gathering to watch the game and pretend to order food and have “business meetings.” Yeah…right. Just like Jesse pretends to take a 10:30 lunch in order to watch the games at his office ☺ Looks like this cover is universal!

The Netherlands has my heart…I mean, Argentina has my final pick, but the Netherlands has my heart. And I think my heart is going to get ripped out and trampled on today. At least that’s what the first 24 minutes are telling me. I hope I’m wrong.